The Mystery Why Ivermectin is Blocked: Indian Bar Council vs. WHO

 Here's an interesting controversy on Ivermectin I received from a very old friend of mine, Prof Dr.  MP Deva who was formerly the Head of the Dept. of Psychological Medicine, University Hospital, University of Malaya. He  later became  a Consultant Psychiatrist to WHO

 

Here's what he emailed to me: 

"Indian Bar Council vs WHO because WHO refuses to approve Ivermectin for use Corvid"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eD9BYCYwsUI

Later he emailed me again when I gave him a short reply that WHO cannot be sued.   

Dear JB

The Indian Bar Council suing may not make make much headway but the explanation of the company trying to divert the importance of that drug is not at all without merit.

I know of many Pharma companies using very dirty tactics to push newer but not much better drugs because the older good (and so much cheaper)drugs’ patent has run out.

In psychiatry they have all but killed Amytryptyline a very good antidepressant we used for decades in favors if SSRIs which cost at least 20 times more (50cents vs RM 5.60) pushing doctors to avoid it because of “side effects”  - a nominal problem. The list abounds.


The WHO has come out with an ESSENTIAL MEDICINES LIST UPDATED EVERY 2 years but almost unknown to anyone !! Even a very famous ex WHO person does not use it.


See

www. who.int essential medicine list and very few new drugs are listed - and costs are very Low as their patents have long gone.


Another big disaster is the opioid overdose  controversy in US which has killed thousands through prescription of Fentanyl largely promoted by the pharma. Some US states have won legal suits against them running into BILLIONS.

Best Wishes
Thanks 

Deva

Here is just part of my longer reply back  to Prof Deva once again.

Dear Deva,


In your second video-letter on Indian Bar Council wanting to sue WHO, especially her own Indian national - Dr. Soumya Swaminathan, Chief Scientist to WHO, how can anybody, any organization or any country sue a world body like WHO?

Who is going to pay India even if the Indian Bar Council wins?

I think the main reason why both FDA and WHO refuse to approve Ivermectin for Covid is because no one knows the dose and the duration of the dose for safety reasons.

Under dose results in ineffectiveness and subsequent resistance to the drug.
Overdose causes poisoning

There has been cases in Malaysia where patients take just one tablet of Ivermectin to 'cure' his Covid,  while another took as much as 15 tablets as a single dose till he was hospitalized for acute poisoning and died until the Ministry of Health has to report this to the National Poison Centre in Penang to reclassify Ivermectin as a poison. Both died probably either due to Covid, or due to Ivermectin poisoning or both -  one  with  just one tablet, the other 15 tablet in one sitting

Ivermectin has never been classified as a poison before when used in low doses as an anti-parasitic  agent

The problem is, no one has yet to establish the safe and effective dose of Ivermectin for Covid, let alone the duration of the dosing. It may be 100 to 500 times higher  than if used as an anti-parasitic drug, and the dosing duration may be as long as one month?

Of course a few studies such as Front Line Covid-19 Critical Care Alliance for the Prevention and Treatment Protocols for Covid-19 have suggested 0.4 - 0.6 mg / kg per dose to be taken with or after meals for 5 days. But that is just an unofficial suggestion yet to be appropved or recognized by FDA, WHO or other drug regulatory bodies. 

Of course isolated dosage studies can be suggested as often done in clinical studies, but  these isolated studies need to be approved or revised by FDA. 

Indivudual studies and treatment protocols serve only as unofficial guidelines, and they are not officially establised or recognized 

This means in order for Ivermectin to be safely used for the management of Covid a drug company has to  do all the laborious studies all over again even for an old drug repurposed for another use such as for Covid instead of as an antiparasitic agent. 

They may have to repeat the preclinical studies all over again if they have not previously done so using  animal studies for toxicity, tetratogenic effects, etc etc  calculated for body weight for higher doses than used as an anti-parasitic drug at much lower dosages 

All the data must then be resubmitted to the FDA for review, and that can cost any drug company billions of US dollars, and years to redo before an effective and safe dose may be established. The data can run into tens of hundreds of pages, not some casual suggestions in a few sentences withiout proper data in a few isolated clinical trials. 

Actually as far as I know there is no other new drugs been researched and developed at the moment for Covid to rival Ivermectin which is an old drug. In order to come up with a new drug against Covid, it would take any Big Pharm years, probably 10 to 15 years at a cost of billions of US$ 

 

Hence I do not think there is any reason why anyone, agency or any organization wants to get rid of Ivermectin as an effective drug for the management of Covid?

The nearest rivals are the various vaccines produced by different countries done independently, and that has nothing to do with any single Big Pharma in the US, FDA or elsewhere

The various antimalarial drugs like chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine, or antiviral drugs like Lopinavir/Ritonavir for HIV, or remdesivir.. etc., etc.  all have been studied and cannot be used

So we shall never know the reasons why Ivermectin has been blocked

Our only choice now is, use nothing but just depend on our own immune system that has provided 99 % of self recoveries where tens of millions of Covid patients world wide have recovered on their own without much treatment, or use Ivermectin at our own risk, or just depend on vaccines that has never been shown to be really effective

It is the Devil or the deep blue sea. Which is which?


Someone asked me this question, and I have replied in my blog here:

A Probably Reason Why Ivermectin is A Yet-to-Be Approved Drug for the Treatment of Covid Patients

https://scientificlogic.blogspot.com/?zx=6306b3911a4d195d


I know there has been lots and lots of controversies not just pertaining ivermectin but vaccines too

This whole pandemic is jumbled-up with politics, economics, scientific and medical issues, until everyone is so confused whom to believe, accept or reject

I know people are blaming the Big Pharm producing those controversial vaccines trying to get rid of ivermectin

The problem is, FDA is the most powerful Drug Regulatory Agency of the United States that is so strict that even the entire world look up to it for advice

But unfortunately WHO that represents the entire world on health matters is even more strict that it cuts down all unnecessary new drugs even if approved by FDA, and keeps only a list of Essential Drugs, probably including Ivermectin for anti-parasitic uses only

Even if we assume the Big Pharma in the United States producing vaccines can influence FDA in their own country to prevent Ivermectin being used, how is it possible for them to influence WHO which belongs to the entire world involving so many member countries,  some 194 Member State countries

WHO obviously is even far more influential and powerful than FDA, but even WHO refuses to approve Ivermectin for the treatment of Covid

There must be some extremely strong reasons for this, or some hidden agenda somewhere not known to us?

It is so confusing Deva until FDA, CDC, WHO  and  Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, Director, Head of NIAID are all involved into politics, let alone other countries that need to follow the directions of these regulatory bodies like FDA and WHO

Best wishes

JB

 

A Probably Reason Why Ivermectin is A Yet-to-Be Approved Drug for the Treatment of Covid Patients

 Here’s a letter I received in our daily WhatsApp chat group. It reads:

 

“Tell us Prof Dr JB Lim how is it that Ivermectin is still not being approved for use by FDA, WHO  and by almost all countries in this world for Covid treatment

 

I came to know that you are a Special Medical and Science Adviser to a local drug company, and you will be the most qualified person to tell us

 

We always enjoy reading your well versed answers, and perhaps we can await your highly learned and esteemed answer to this dilemma since there are  'evidences' voiced by doctors  that Ivermectin is effective”

 

Prof NC Tan

--------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Here’s my brief reply to Prof Dr Tan

 

“Thank you Prof Tan for your question

The answer is very lengthy as many controversial questions has to be discussed and these have been hotly argued by other experts too

For instance, some of them argue that Ivermectin can only inhibit the SARS-CoV-2 virus duplication in vitro, namely in lab studies, but not in vivo in human subjects in a clinical setting.

 

Then there is this dose problem that has not being worked out because ivermectin has never been used officially for the treatment of Covid patients.

Furthermore, most people recovered on their own without Ivermectin, oxygen or any other support system

In fact out of 20,000 new cases each day in this country or elsewhere, only less than 300 died, and that's just 1.5 % mortality

The rest recovered on their own uneventfully

So drugs like Ivermectin may not have any role at all in their recovery even if given

The best is our own immune system that plays the major role in almost all recoveries

We shall try to avoid all these debates among experts themselves”

 

Instead, I shall try to answer your question as briefly as possible in the eyes of FDA

Because of its length I have decided to post my opinion in my blog for others

outside this chat group to read as well, here:

Regards, and thank you once again for your enquiry and interest

Jb lim

 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

Thank you for your question Professor Tan requesting my opinion. It is very lengthy for me to explain in detail, let alone explain the numerous  flaws and controversies in the study design and statistical treatment of the so-called data found in isolated studies here and there. 

 

I have read many of their papers, but I am not satisfied by their findings especially the way the methodology these studies were conducted. 

 

But we shall not go into them as they are very technical for lay readers to understand. There were also many statistical flaws in sampling. None was well-designed.   

 

But we shall try to be as brief as possible, described in as simple a language as necessary so that this understanding is not lost in transition Firstly, in order for any drug, whether  new or old to be used for another purpose (repurposed) other than already approved for specific treatment previously, a new application needs to be submitted once again to FDA for New Drug Application (NDA). 

 

 For such a repurpose application (such as ivermectin for Covid), the medical establishment or any organization must first submit thousands of pages to the FDA for review and approval. 

 

That type of research or data can cost a person or any drug manufacturer tens of billions of US dollars. Who wants to do this? This is only the first step for an official request for ivermectin or any drug to be used for Covid. This applies to any drug whether old or new that they intend to use for any other treatment other than what it was originally approved and intended. 

 

 

The NDA demands all animal and human data, plus side effects, dosing, and effectiveness to be submitted to them. Other information, such as pharmacokinetics (how the drug is absorbed, moves, distributed, and retained through the body), and specifics of manufacturing process are also to be  revealed such as the purity of the drug for human use, and not in some crude form as an anti-parasitic agent meant for veterinary applications. 

 

 At the moment nobody knows the safe and effective dosage of ivermectin for humans. Reports came in of some taking only only one tablet to ‘cure’ Covid, others landing up with acute poisoning swallowing 15 tablets in one sitting until the Ministry of Health Malaysia has reported this to the National Poison Centre to classify ivermectin as a poison. 

 

Once any health authorities submit their tens of hundreds of thousands of research data to the FDA team the FDA will take at least 60 days to review the NDA and determine if it will be filed for further review. Firstly, any person, manufacturer, clinician, whosoever, wants to have a drug approved for a new use, they must submit all these data all over again, and they can be in these stages: 

 

 

 1. Discovery that ivermectin is effective for Covid from casual observation.

2. Preclinical Research using cell-line studies, animal assays, toxicological, and teratogenic studies, dosage for humans…etc. etc. 

 

 3. Clinical Research. This can be in at least two phases - initial clinical trials involving just a few dozens to a few hundred patients. If the drug seems promising, the study will be extended to tens of millions of people world-wide from all participating countries with very strict clinical and statistical  protocols to be observed. 3.

 

 

4.  FDA Review will then review all these studies once again and  that can cost tens of billions of US dollars, and this 10 to 15 years to study, and not just in one year in 2012. 

 

5. FDA Post-Market Safety Monitoring (Pharmacovigilance)  

 

 A drug for repurpose must undergo Priority Review, and the FDA takes action on a new drug application within six months, compared to 10 months under standard review. These drugs receive higher priority because they can significantly improve the treatment such as for emergency use for Covid, its diagnosis, or prevention of serious conditions. 

 

FDA Advisory Board: 

 

Next comes a group of independent physicians and other clinicians, who are then finally called in to give their opinion to the FDA Advisory Board. These medical experts discuss with the NDA and FDA reviewers the drug use for a new treatment such as the use of ivermectin for Covid.  

 

 The FDA often follows the advice of the Board, but is not obligated to do so. This advisory team includes physicians, research scientists pharmacists, chemists, pharmacologists, statisticians, and even patient representatives.     

 

It normally takes between 12 to 18 years, and sometimes even as long as 20 years for any drug to be approved by FDA for use for any specific treatment such as ivermectin for Covid.  It is not as easy as that.   

 

 FDA and WHO have their teams of highly qualified medical and scientific experts to advise them, and they care two hoots what  any individual doctor or a private GP has to say by publicizing his personal views and uploading them social media video.

 For sure FDA will not listen even if  thousands of doctors demand the  drug can be  used for a disease  no matter how convincing individual and isolated studies published here and there.   

 

This doctor in the video sent to me is only a private GP who tells only his own grandmother story like a fairy tales using social media video to convince other patients or even to other specialist doctors. 

 

 He even has the audacity to complain and advised the Director of a government hospital how his Covid-infected relative needed to be treated by giving ivermectin along with other medication. 

 

This behaviour is very unbecoming of a doctor trying to interfere with the treatment given to a patient being treated in a government or a private hospital. What right has he? This is highly unethical and unprofessional code of conduct for a doctor. 

 

 If there is any suggestion for a new treatment, the researchers worth their salt will tell the academic and medical world by publishing their studies and findings in proper referral scientific journals and not use video through social media to publicize, let alone interfere with treatment given by other doctors in a hospital who need to follow standard treatment protocols. 

 Yet almost all the studies done on ivermectin and covid management were rejected by FDA and WHO due to flaws in their study design and sampling.    

 

 Read here for the details the criteria how drugs have to undergo lengthy and very strict investigation protocols before any drug can be  approved for any use.

 

 

https://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=9877

 

 

 It is not as easy as that for sure,  just because tens of hundreds of doctors gather to demand it.   Neither FDA, WHO or Drug Control Bureau in  any country will give way to anybody no matter how loudly they shout and demand in public, through circulating social media, through whatsapp, or using their personal videos uploaded for public viewing. 

Publicizing their opinion in social media, in whatsapp, in video in Google is NOT the way medical or clinical research are being conducted ethically, professionally and scientifically. It is not meant for any doctor to decide which drug is effective and safe. They need to get approval from higher authorities for safety reasons no matter how urgent its need, especially for drugs that has never been thoroughly studied for a repurpose.   

 

 Neither FDA, WHO or any drug control authorities in any country in the world will give way to individual opinions of any doctor or even if thousands of them  believe in them and demand collectively its use.   

 

 Only individual patients and the public will listen to their doctors and believe in him or her, but definitely not the Ministry of Health of any country. Most countries listen and follow the advice of WHO and FDA as both these two organizations have hundreds of far better and more qualified experts to advise them even though almost every country has their own drug control and regulatory bodies. FDA in the US are the experts on usage of drugs, not anyone else, and WHO on all health matters for the entire world to follow.   

 

 Neither can any Big Pharma control the FDA, WHO or any drug control authority in any country as some believe. In fact the reverse is true. The Big Pharm are under the absolute and total control of FDA and WHO screens them all and gives consent only to a list of essential drugs.   

 

FDA can reject licence for any drug to be used, and even when already approved, they can still withdraw its use at any time if they find serious adverse  reactions during the post-marketing pharmaco-vigilance although the drug manufacturers have already spent US $ 20 billion over 15 years developing the drug  for any previous use or for repurpose  for Covid.   

 

  A lot of people do not understand how  extremely strict these drug approval and control authorities are. They just cannot allow ivermectin to be used rampantly by just anybody including by doctors or pharmacists or by the public  just because everybody shouts loudly in public videos demanding ivermectin be used for managing Covid. 

That maybe only their personal view and experience, not the scientific community, let alone the entire world.

Then we also have no idea what happens when the SARS-CoV-2 virus mutates under threat of a drug and becomes a much more resilient variant that shall evolve to become resistant to all drugs. What we are afraid is, if we challlenge any organism with drugs, agents, chemicals, or probably even vaccines, it will mutate into hardier strains and variants as part of their genetic programme to become more resistant to a hostile environment whether within or outside our body. 

It is just a recognized biological law of adaptation for their existence and survival obseverable in all living creatures including 'non-living' viruses. This sort of adaptive scernarios has already been in placed for 4 billion years since life first arrived on Earth. 

 

We can clearly see this in lots of bacteria already resistant to several generations of antibiotics, including antiparasitic drugs like chloroquine used against malarial parasites. 

This may also  be an outcome if we use ivermectin and antiparasitic drug rampantly just as we do with antibiotics against pathogenic bacteria to give rise to superbugs like methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) that causes stap nosocomial infections in hospitals.

This is part of Nature being observed in the evolution of all life in the past 4 thousand million years of adaptation and evolution, and I think clinicians should also learn evolutionary medicine, not just clinical medicine  in order for them to understand the nature of disease better

How this virus is going to evolve into more aggrressive pathogenic variants because we want to challenge its existence and survival we need also to consider, and it is highly unprofessional and unscientific for any drug to be used rampantly especially coming from clinicians and other health professionals who ought to be more careful, professional and scientific. 

I hope I have briefly answered and explained, and thank you for your question

 L im ju boo

 Monday, September 6, 2021

 

Does Cholesterol Cause Heart Disease?

 

 

https://www.tiktok.com/@mohanaturoholistics/video/7202991888549350683

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQPfYghxXQI

 

Dear Dr (Mrs) N. Kandiah,

Thank you for requesting my comment on the article you sent below in parenthesis and in different colours.    

 “Pharma companies extracted USD 2 trillion from consumers in the name of cholesterol level treatment.   What a shame on medical research fraud and authorities. Their incompetency costed USD 2 trillion to people those who were fit and healthy.    *Cholesterol* is finally officially removed from Naughty List. The US government has finally accepted that *cholesterol* is not a _nutrient of concern_. *doing a U-turn* on their warnings to us to stay away from high-cholesterol foods since the 1970s to avoid heart disease and clogged arteries.   This means eggs, butter, full-fat dairy products, nuts, coconut oil and meat have now been classified as *safe* and have been officially removed from the _nutrients of concern_ list.   The US Department of Agriculture, which is responsible for updating the guidelines every five years, stated in its findings for 2015: "Previously, the Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommended that cholesterol intake be limited to no more than 300 mg/day.  

 "The 2015 DGAC will not bring forward this recommendation because available evidence shows no appreciable relationship between consumption of dietary cholesterol and serum (blood) cholesterol, consistent with the AHA/ACC (American Heart Association / American College of Cardiology).  The Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee will, in response, no longer warn people against eating high-cholesterol foods and will instead focus on sugar as the main substance of dietary concern.   US cardiologist Dr Steven Nissen said: _It's the right decision_. _We got the dietary guidelines wrong. They've been wrong for decades_."   When we eat more foods rich in this compound, our bodies make less. If we deprive ourselves of foods high in cholesterol - such as eggs, butter, and liver - our body revs up.    

The Real Truth about Cholesterol. The majority of the cholesterol in you is produced by your liver. Your brain is primarily made up of cholesterol. It is essential for nerve cells to function.    Cholesterol is the basis for the creation of all the steroid hormones, including oestrogen, testosterone, and corticosteroids.    *High cholesterol in the body is a clear indication which shows the liver of the individual is in good health*   

Dr. George V. Mann M.D. Associate Director of the Framingham study for the incidence and prevalence of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and its risk factors states:  _Saturated fats and cholesterol in the diet are not the cause of coronary heart disease. *That myth is the greatest deception of the century, perhaps of any century*_   *Cholesterol is the biggest medical scam of all time* There is no such thing as *bad Cholesterol*   

So you can stop trying to change your Cholesterol level. Studies prove beyond a doubt, cholesterol doesn't cause heart disease and it won't stop a heart attack.   *The majority of people that have heart attacks have normal cholesterol levels. *   OUR BODY NEEDS 950 mg OF CHOLESTEROL FOR DAILY METABOLISM AND THE LIVER IS THE MAIN Producer. ONLY 15% OF CHOLESTEROL IS BEING DONATED BY THE FOOD WE EAT.    

 

If the fat content is less in the food we eat, our liver has to work more to maintain the level at 950 mg.   *If the cholesterol level is high in our body, it shows the liver is working perfect. *   Experts say that there is nothing like LDL or HDL.  ………….. ….. *Cholesterol is not found to create blocks anywhere in the human body*.   Please share the recent facts about CHOLESTEROL”  

 

 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/02/10/feds-poised-to-withdraw-longstanding-warnings-about-dietary-cholesterol/utm_term=.1982832f86fa

 

Thank you for the post above.   

 

I have written many times in the past that cholesterol has nothing to do with heart disease, and neither egg, brain or liver food all containing high cholesterol have anything to do with high blood cholesterol, or with heart disease.

In fact, the homeostatic feedback mechanism of the liver can cause the liver to produce 10 times more cholesterol endogenously than all the cholesterol we can eat through food every day. 

This means the amount of cholesterol from food pales into nothing compared to what the liver can synthesize.   

 

For instance, one large egg contains about 186 mg of cholesterol all found in the yolk. Suppose we consume 10 eggs a day. The intake from 10 eggs alone amounts to 1860 mg.   

 

An adult weighing   68 to 82 kg should have about 4,500 to 5,700 mL. of blood.    Let us use 5 litres (5,000 mL) as an average for easy calculation for illustration.   

 

This implies that even if he eats 10 eggs a day, his dietary contribution from eggs would only raise his blood level of cholesterol by only 37 mg per 100 mL, not even wanting to consider that about 0.4 g (400 mg) of cholesterol is being excreted through the bile each day.   

 

I have eaten at least two eggs almost every day all my life since I was a child and until today at the age of 82, I have never had any high cholesterol or heart problems.   Furthermore, in 1969 when I started working at the Institute for Medical Research, for at least 10 years I used to go an Indian food stall behind Indian money lenders shop in Lebuh Ampang in Kuala Lumpur and have my favourite lunch of Indian curry goat’s brain cooked with curry and eggs there every day.   

 

But when I checked my blood level cholesterol, it was always normal, and its level has never been raised despite so much curried goat’s brains.  I have eaten daily for 10 years. 

 

I might have at the same time consumed a large amount of choline from the eggs and brain which is supposed to be excellent for the brain and nervous system?   Brain has the highest amount of cholesterol among all the cholesterol-rich foods like egg yolk and liver. I never till today have any problem with high cholesterol or heart disease all my life. 

 

In fact, eggs and brain food are very high in choline which is very essential for brain function and neurological development throughout life. See my write up attached on the benefits of eggs here:  

 

 http://flfam.org.my/files/Dr%20Lim%20Ju%20Boo%20presentation%20-Hen%20Egg.pdf

or here in alternative link:

https://taionn.blogspot.com/2017/09/dr-lim-ju-boos-slide-presentation-on.html

 

 When I was studying in London in 1964 my late professor, Professor John Yudkin who was a Professor of Nutrition, University of London already told us cholesterol does not cause heart disease, but refined white sugar does.   

 Prodessor John Yudkin here: 

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Yudkin

It was at the time when this theory that cholesterol causes heart disease was rampantly believed among doctors who influenced the lay public to believe the same. 

 

 When i was working in various Divisions - the Nutrition Division, Community Medicine, Epidemioloigy and Clinical Research  at the Institute for Medical Research (IMR) in 1968 - 1994, I used to sign not just one, ten, or a hundred, but tens of thousands of analytical reports on blood cholesterol levels in blood samples sent to us by tens of hundreds of government hospitals every day.   

 

They were sent to IMR from all over Malaysia, from East and West Malaysia, and from hospitals near the Thai border in the north to those in Johore and Johor Bahru in the south.   In our analysis we found no relationship between what the doctors wrote there in their clinical notes about patients suspected of having heart disease, ischemia and heart attack and their serum cholesterol levels There were 3 parties involved here: 

 

1. The Patient 2. The doctor 3. 

 

We, the analyst helping out the doctor   Initially, among the three parties we put the blame on ourselves first. We thought we were wrong due to an analytical error. However, when we saw what the doctor wrote there in their clinical notes did not tally with our findings, we requested our medical lab technologists to repeat the analysis.   The return results were the same each time for tens of hundreds of repeated analyses. 

 

The repeat results each time showed only one or two milligram per litre of blood difference from the original.   Not satisfied, we requested a recovery analysis to be done in case the analytical techniques were unreliable. We then used known amounts of pure cholesterol added into the blood samples, and the recovery amount was exactly the same as what we added. 

 

So there was no analytical error involved on our part.   So, there are only two remaining parties left: either the doctor's preliminary diagnosis was wrong, or the patient lied to the doctor.   In any case we did not see other investigations such as ECG to look for ST elevation, and cardiac enzymes such as myoglobin, troponin and creatine kinase being done by the clinicians which would have greatly helped us with the diagnosis.   

 

They only requested for serum cholesterol. So, we just did that, and, in most cases, we found no relationship between what the clinicians wrote there and our lab findings.  

 

I already knew by then John Yudkin was dead right, but I could not voice this out because of the very strong belief and mindset of the doctors who still believe cholesterol was the cause of their patient’s heart problems because of that very influential and famous longitudinal Framingham Heart Study that started in 1948 and is still going on till today on cohorts that initially found cholesterol caused heart disease. 

 But as the study was followed up years later, they found there were other factors such as diabetes, stress, high blood pressure, infection, sedentary lifestyles, obesity... etc. etc., that were the causative root causes of heart disease, and not just cholesterol. 

 

I already suspected there was no relationship at all between ischemic heart events and cholesterol by then, but I could not voice this out because of the very strong ingrained belief among doctors that high blood cholesterol was the cause.   

 

Then around 1970’s the Board of Directors of the same Framingham Heart Study issued  an official statement that cholesterol is not the primary cause of heart disease but other factors they later found were the  causes But by then the big drug companies have already capitalized on Framingham earlier study, and they started to produce their various types and generations of  statin groups of anti-cholesterol drugs such as atorvastatin fluvastatin, lovastatin, pitavastatin, pravastatin, rosuvastatin, simvastatin into the market. The amount of these statins prescribed rose to US $88 million in 2002 to US $ 60 billion annually due to such rampant beliefs among doctors and the lay public who believed the same.      

 

Unfortunately doctors hardly read medical journals and papers published on new discoveries but they just listen to drug salespeople who promote their products.   After all the big statins producing companies have already invested tens of US $ billion to produce these anti-cholesterol drugs, and hence they need to continue to push them to the doctors to get back their investments despite Framingham Heart Study earlier retraction.   

 

What can we do as they are so powerful financially to overpower the medical profession and brain wash them thoroughly with their drug of choice. We all in research and in the pharmaceutical industry know what is going on between the drug industry and the doctors as they work hand in gloves together.  

 

Numerous studies following the Framingham Heart Study also showed that many other factors such as stress, obesity, sedentary lifestyle, unhealthy food and harmful nutrition are the main causes of cardiovascular events, and not cholesterol. 

 

 Citing just one example will do, it was found that stress may be more important than cholesterol as the causation of cardiovascular disease, and this is explained below in No 1: 

 

1.       https://www.stress.org/why-reducing-stress-is-much-more-important-than-lowering-cholesterol

 

The second one is a video on "The Town of Allopath" highlighting the deception by drug companies to treat non-existing causes of disease.

 

2.       https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZUPYZ2ICvU

 

The second one may also be accessed by typing "The Town called Allopath" directly into Google search. Thank you.

 

The release of harmful stress hormones such as adrenaline in the fight or flight response may be one of the causes.   When the stress “fight or flight” response episode is over, the stress hormone adrenaline breaks down and releases cascade of extremely damaging free radicals into the bloodstream causing extensive damage to all the cells, tissues, organs and systems in the body including the inner intima linings of the coronary blood vessels to the heart. This causes an inflammatory lesion in the coronaries to block blood flow to the heart. 

 

 This has completely nothing to do with cholesterol deposits as there are other deposits that cause atherosclerotic plaques to be formed as well.   What it actually does is, the free radicals as an singlet oxygen radical oxidizes the low density cholesterol in particular to make them become very sticky and gummy allowing other deposits to adhere to the already damaged intima of the coronaries, and this may compound to further damage 

                 

Atherosclerosis and cholesterol: 

 

Pure cholesterol monohydrate is a very pale-yellow substance practically insoluble in water (less than 0.5 mg/100 ml of water).

 

But it is slightly soluble in organic solvents such as ethanol (1.29% w/w at 20 °C), methanol, dimethylformamide (DMF), chloroform, and pet ether.

 

When pure cholesterol powder is touched with the fingers, it does not stick onto the fingers at all. It is neither gummy or sticky but just powdery to feel, and it floats in water.

 

Hence there is no reason why it must stick onto the inner surface of blood vessels to form a cholesterol plaque there unless oxidized by free radicals, especially the low-density lipoprotein cholesterol that may cause it to be gummy trapping other substances such as fibrin (from blood clotting), dead blood cell, fatty materials, calcium, etc to form an atherosclerotic plaque there. When plaque (fatty deposits) clogs your arteries, that’s called atherosclerosis. 

 

Hyo-Soo Kim of Seoul National University and his team characterized different types of cells that play a role in calcium accumulation in blood vessels. 

 

 They reported the novel concept that immature, stem-cell like cells have the potential to become either osteoblasts or osteoclasts, and that a drug can push these cells toward becoming osteoclasts instead of osteoblasts.   

 

Their study offers new insights into how calcium builds up in the walls of blood vessels during advanced stages of atherosclerosis and paves the way for long-sought therapeutic strategies to combat this common problem. To study the cause of calcium build-up in vessel walls, Kim and his team focused on calcifying progenitor cells—immature cells that can turn into specialized cells capable of either promoting or reversing calcium accumulation (osteoblasts or osteoclasts, respectively). 

 

They isolated these cells from the aortas of mice and sorted them into two groups. Both groups originated from bone marrow—spongy tissue found inside bones—and expressed a cell surface protein called stem cell antigen-1 (Sca-1), but only one group expressed another cell surface protein called platelet-derived growth factor receptor alpha (PDGFRα). 

 

 Moreover, both types of cells had a tendency to turn into osteoblast-like cells and thereby promote atherosclerotic calcium build-up. But cells expressing both Sca-1 and PDGFRα were more committed to the osteoblastic lineage, whereas those expressing only Sca-1 were bidirectional:   they could also become osteoclast-like cells.   

 

The findings suggest that these bidirectional cells could be targeted by new therapies that shift their fate toward the osteoclastic lineage, thereby preventing calcium accumulation in blood vessels. 

 

 Their study did not show any cholesterol being involved in plaque formation. Hope this comment helps answer your article and question you sent. 

 

Jb lim